How to Edit Your Marketing Video to Fit the Music

When you have a piece of music that matches well the emotional purpose of your marketing video, fine-tune your edit to maximize the effect of the music. For example, you can extend a scene slightly to fit the most dramatic moment with a remarkable hook in the music.

Most editing programs let you lock your music tracks to avoid their being affected by other changes in your video. Follow these steps:

Put your musical piece on its own audio track.

Time the music so that the music begins exactly where you want.

Lock the music track.

Most editing programs use a tiny padlock icon to indicate locking.

Watch the video and determine how to adapt the timing to best fit the music.

For example, shorten or stretch certain shots slightly.

Make your editing changes.

Unlock the audio track.

Precisely matching cuts in a video with beats in the music can create quite a pleasing effect because the picture and music then seem to move in perfect harmony. Avoid overdoing it, though, because an exact match can quickly bore viewers.

The best approach is to match a couple of cuts with the music and then purposely skip the next few cuts before matching again. Alternating makes the final product less predictable and maintains viewer interest.